Tag: Low Waste

Started out my day strong, bringing my reusable water bottle to work again (+1 points). On the way to work I grabbed a Butterbreze from the bakery (i.e. buttered [soft] pretzel, it’s a normal breakfast in Germany, ok?), and handed over my reusable cloth bag, so no waste there: +1 points again!

For lunch, my colleague and I went to eat out and enjoy the sun on a patio. Unfortunately I’m not yet in the habit of carrying around containers for takeaway food/ leftovers, so I asked to have my pizza packed up when I couldn’t finish it. I then received my remaining pizza slices in aluminium foil. At least it wasn’t plastic or styrofoam, but still, -1 points for not yet having a reusable container for takeaway food. (Admittedly this might be kind of awkward to bust out while at lunch with colleagues.)

For dinner I ate the remaining slices of pizza, and put the aluminium foil in the recycling. Not sure whether this is really positive, but no waste appears to have been generated, and no plastic was used today.

Again, that leaves me with a score of +1. Not perfect, but not such a bad day.

P.S. Are these posts becoming boring?! Perhaps I’ll only continue to update on my low waste/ low plastic challenge if there’s an interesting development. I look forward to writing some deeper and more well-researched articles later this weekend when I have a bit more time. Until then, keep it sustainable my lovely readers! [ If you exist yet 😉 ]

Brought my reusable stainless steel water bottle to work today – no more drinking out of plastic for this girl! +1

We made salad bowls together at work today, and I was assigned to bring feta cheese, so I did create some plastic packaging waste from the cheese. I’m not at a level yet where I’m going to make my own cheese or go to a specialty cheese shop with my own paper… So I will have to accept this small amount of waste generation for now. -1

Positively, I think that was the only waste I created all day! Dinner was aubergine with penne (plastic packaging, but it’s not empty so no waste yet) and tomato sauce from a glass jar that I look forward to keeping and reusing. I plan to buy my pasta from a cardboard box next time! (Or bulk!) +1

I did however eat my breakfast (yogurt) out of a plastic yogurt container with a foil and plastic lid: – 1 point for sustainability.

I rode my bike to work! + 1 point for sustainability

I drank out of a plastic water bottle at work: -1 point for sustainability.

I will recycle the yogurt container, and the water bottles will be picked up, cleaned and reused: +1 point for sustainability?

I just can’t commit to making my own yogurt at this point! It’s just too much to ask of a working girl isn’t it? But maybe next time I’ll buy the yogurt in the glass jar, which has a deposit on it and is collected back at the grocery store. (Or I’ll keep it to support the burgeoning jar collection for bulk food in my cupboard).

An update on my Low Impact (i.e. low waste, low plastic use) journey: Yesterday I wrote about how trying to be zero waste makes you feel like a failure multiple times a day.

Today I am proud to report two small wins. First, a colleague told me that I inspired him to purchase re-usable produce/ bakery bags. Very proud to have already influenced at least one person to make sustainable changes in their lifestyle!

Second, I left the grocery store today without any plastic
or waste! To be fair, I only purchased three items, but nonetheless, goal
accomplished by bringing my own bag for my buns (ciabatta rolls) and selecting package-free
produce. This also ended up with me leaving with a large head of lettuce in my
arms, but I was able to put it into my reusable bag once I ate the ciabatta
rolls with lunch. Unfortunately I don’t like lettuce as much as arugula
(rocket) or mixed greens (which were on sale), but it came without any plastic packaging,
so I picked it.

One challenge still to overcome – the use of plastic water
bottles in our office. I plan to speak to our office manager and ask her about the
cost of the current bottle delivery/ pickup service*, and see if I can make a
business case for a water filtration/ carbonation machine instead. Working in
Germany, many people love to drink carbonated sparkling water, so this would be
necessary to replace the current offering of flat and sparkling water bottles.

*They also pick the bottles up and supposedly clean and refill them, so it’s at least somewhat of a closed, circular supply chain, but I suspect it’s not as eco-friendly as simply having a water filtration and carbonation machine in the office and saving on all those supply chain and transportation steps.

As I’ve recently become interested in the zero waste and plastic-free movements, I’ve become more conscious of the products I use and the waste that I do produce. I thought it would be interesting to see how easily I could minimise my waste and my plastic use. Thinking of myself as an ‘already-fairly-environmentally-conscious’ person, I didn’t think it would be that hard – but oh how wrong I was.

I didn’t want to start off too ambitious and get discouraged, so instead of aiming for zero waste and zero plastic, I thought I’d first try consciously reducing my usage. The first step I took was to order some reusable cloth produce/ bakery bags online, and get myself a bamboo toothbrush.

Using the bags has going well. At first I felt awkward handing them to the baker to give me my buns or bread in, but I’ve never gotten more than a vaguely odd look, and they don’t seem mind using that instead of a paper bag. The trickier bit is when I buy a larger amount of bread and want to store it. Since the bags are mesh, and we don’t have a bread box, the bread doesn’t stay particularly fresh… They’re not particularly great for freezing the bread in either. Turns out plastic is pretty useful after all… For now I’ve put my bread in the freezer in a reused old plastic bread bag. Luckily in Germany it’s pretty typical just to shop fresh and only buy one or two days’ worth of bread. Otherwise I guess I’ll have to consider getting a tin or a bread box for better storage.

In general though, I do feel I’ve significantly reduced my usage of paper and mixed paper-plastic bakery bags, of which I was using a lot since I usually buy a pretzel or a bun for lunch everyday.

I’ve had somewhat less success on the toothbrush front – unfortunately it appears that the ergonomic advances in toothbrush technology over the past few decades weren’t all for nothing. My bamboo toothbrush has too much bristle-free bamboo at the end, and I always feel like I’m poking myself in the gums trying to reach my teeth at the back. Perhaps I’ll try a different one later, but for now I’ve sheepishly switched back to a plastic toothbrush with more comfortable bristle positioning and handle shape. I console myself with the fact that I only dispose of my toothbrush once every 3-4 months.

Researching and reading more from the zero waste community, I’ve come across a number of quotes that I feel aptly summarise the journey to be zero waste or plastic-free:

The hardest part of the journey so far seems to be that you put invest a lot of time, effort and brainpower towards small decisions that you used to not concern yourself with… and nonetheless you end up feeling like a failure multiple times a day, and having people think you’re a bit odd.

You spend twice the amount of time at the grocery store wondering things to yourself like, ‘What’s more eco-friendly, an aluminium can or a TetraPak?’ and gaze longingly at the sushi packed in single-use plastic, wondering if you could ask the sushi counter to make a new one for you and put it in your reusable container. Even then, if you’re a hardcore zero waster, you’ll still have to worry about the plastic price sticker, the wasabi package or the tiny plastic-fish soy sauce dispenser.

“Don’t EVER pack light if you want to avoid plastic. You must always bring all your accessories in your zero-waste ‘mom bag.’”

In order to succeed, it seems as though one must always undertake a lot of planning and preparation. I made the mistake of packing too light recently. While travelling in London, I thought was only going out for breakfast, so I only brought my tiny purse and my wallet with me. Four hours later, I found myself still out, walking around the city, parched and craving water… And I eventually succumbed to a guilt-ridden purchase of a large plastic water bottle.

The learning here is that if you’re trying to be zero waste or zero plastic, you better have a full travel meal kit with you, or have planned time for dining in, even for a coffee. As one blogger puts it,

“Being zero waste is not very efficient, but you could look at it as forced relaxation.”

All in all? I’m still very much at the beginning of this journey, but I look forward to continuing to make small changes that I hope will add up to a larger impact overall. I’ll be keeping you updated on how it goes!

It takes courage, commitment, and a ****load of planning to be zero waste/ zero plastic.